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No love for IcePower?

typericey

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Did a search (titles only) and nothing came up.

Yeah IcePower likely wont measure as good as NCores but it’s also at a lower price point. Emotiva has IcePower monoblocks that’s basically a module in a box. Peachtree Novas, SMSL A6 and A8, etc. all without reviews here. Not Amir’s fault, I guess it’s just that no one owns them much less ships them out for review.

I’m also curious how IcePower performs versus UcD.
 

BillG

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Did a search (titles only) and nothing came up.

Yeah IcePower likely wont measure as good as NCores but it’s also at a lower price point. [...] Not Amir’s fault, I guess it’s just that no one owns them much less ships them out for review.

I’m also curious how IcePower performs versus UcD.

There are been at least two ICEPower based integrated amplifiers reviewed here: The PS Audio Sprout 100, and the Yamaha WXA-50.

The Yamaha measured a bit better, if I recall correctly... :cool:
 

D700

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The Marantz HD-AMP1 is UcD, Amirm measured that one, had some issues
 

anmpr1

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@Purité Audio dose the kii use these ?

The B&O 90 dose I think ...
I heard one of the early ICE Beolabs. Looked like something from Dr. Who. Had a little microphone that measured LF, etc. Also some interesting wave guides. Sound was very good. But I'd have nightmares over something like the 90 in my living room. Also, I draw the line on any speaker that costs twice as much as my first house. ;)
 

Matias

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Would be interesting to see Amir's measurements of the flagship 1200AS2. Anyone willing to lend to Amir?
Datasheet here:
https://icepower.dk/download/5748/

Still most class D manufacturers (ICEpower, Hypex, Purifi, Pascal) share their module's datasheets on their website, made with Audio Precision too, so there is not much of a surprise when Amir measures them. THD x power and IMD x frequency for example are there.

It is a lot more interesting for me when Amir measures the traditional class AB amplifiers that had unknown graphs until then. :)

Below a nice looking Apollon amplifier based on 1200AS (890 euros).

AS1200-Icepower-Stereo-Amplifier-Apollon-Front.jpg
 
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typericey

typericey

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Okay maybe I was generalizing just a tad.

But I am still hoping to see more IcePower reviews on here. Specifically the ones I mentioned: Emotiva monoblocks, Peachtree Novas, and even UcD gear like NAD’s C388 or maybe even the Rogue Audio Sphinx V2 (though I demoed the latter and the hiss was so loud and there was a radio like whine, could be the tubes going bad).
 

andreasmaaan

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ICEpower provides fairly detailed measurements for all their amplifier boards in their datasheets. They seem to be quite consistent with all the measurements of finished products I've seen that employ them. I know this is not a fully satisfactory answer, but at least it will give you a fairly clear idea of how a given product using a given ICE module will perform...
 

Matias

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kn0ppers

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I think the cool thing with some of the ICEPowers, especially the 1200AS1/2 is how much stuff you could potentially run off its additional power rails.
 

HammerSandwich

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The 2 biggest issues I've seen in the datasheets & independent measurements are much higher HF distortion and top-octave FR that varies into different loads. Subjectively, these are almost certainly minor differences, but they are areas where Ncore/Purifi/good-AB amps do better.

I'd definitely consider ICEPower for a woofer, based on price/performance. Same goes for TI's TPA series.
 

garbulky

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I've used the Emotiva PA-1's. Subjectively (no dbt), it's near the top of the amps I've preferred. My Emotiva XPA-1's inches past it but the PA-1 was no slouch at all. Considering also that it weighs and costs a fraction of the XPA-1, it's hard not to recommend it.
 

andreasmaaan

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The 2 biggest issues I've seen in the datasheets & independent measurements are much higher HF distortion and top-octave FR that varies into different loads. Subjectively, these are almost certainly minor differences, but they are areas where Ncore/Purifi/good-AB amps do better.

I'd definitely consider ICEPower for a woofer, based on price/performance. Same goes for TI's TPA series.

Do you have some examples? I'd be interested to look into this further as I have some of these modules but don't have equipment to test them.

I wonder if the difference in measured HF is due to ICEpower's use of the AP AES17 measurement filter, i.e. whether the higher measured harmonics in the independent measurements are out-of-band?
 
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HammerSandwich

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You'll need to dig up the FR variations yourself. The 125ASX2's sheet shows them, but they've been pushed up to ~100kHz. IIRC, older boards displayed similar behavior in the "potentially audible" range. IIRC, they were simply from optimizing the output filter into a certain load & not using post-filter feedback, and not unusual for class D.
 

andreasmaaan

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Thanks @HammerSandwich, I think I’d misunderstood you - thought you were saying there was a discrepancy between ICEPower datasheets and independent measurements of products utilising the boards. I’m aware already of the rising HF distortion, which as you say is typical of devices of this class - thanks though :)
 

somebodyelse

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TI's LC Filter Design doc applies to the majority of their class D range, and shows the Q variation with load. See Figure 5 in the TPA3220EVM User Guide for the HF response variation with load, ~3dB variation between 2R and 8R at 20kHz. most of their datasheets show at least a couple of THD+N vs. frequency plots with different filters and bandwidths. The Post Filter Feedback application note mentions reduced frequency response sensitivity to load in passing, before going into great detail on noise and distortion reduction and stability.
 

MenloBob

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I’ve built a couple of amps based on the 125asx2 modules which can easily be had on ebay in the $130 range per module. I’m using these amps to drive a two way active speaker system. One amp uses a single module in stereo to drive 4” pro compression drivers through a constant directivity horn down to 800hz. The other amp uses two modules in dual mono bridged mode, each module drives a 2x12 bass bin. The dual mono amp also uses a buffer board from Ghent audio to convert to balanced to drive the bridged modules. All totaled with the connectors, wiring harnesses and cases I’ve got about $600 in four channels.

Maybe the next time I go on vacation I’ll send these to Amir for testing. Subjectively these sound very clean to me, but I don’t have anything to compare them to. I was going to build 4 x nCore 400s, until I priced those out ;).

I’ll post some photos later when I get a chance to downsize them.
 

DonH56

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Amir reviews what Amir gets... Send him some ICEpower amps to measure!
 
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